Anniversaries

After me talking about 'Abbey Road' as a definitive summer album, the papers today carry the story that this Saturday sees the 40th anniversary of the iconic photograph of the Beatles walking across the famous zebra crossing.  Quiet London, then well off the beaten track, the silence of an empty sunny afternoon.  And now the studios carries a 24/7 webcam of the crossing, complete with London dusk, couriers on skates, white vans.  

So I am reminded that two of my favourite films are also 40 years old this year.  'The Italian Job', with its haunting music and sense of easy European-ness, a summer spent dodging the Mafia and stealing bullion, the Alps within easy reach.  And the Michael Winner picture 'Hannibal Brooks', Oliver Reed spending a hot out-of-time summer above the tree line, the second world war intruding every now and then; deserted Nazi alpine villages, sunshine, vast stony silences and an elephant called Lucy.